Tuesday, July 19, 2011

it's fascinating to me that i can pass through my days and be transformed in the blink of an eye.

that a few words can soften a stance that i hadn't really considered i held so dearly, so tightly as to almost be protective of it. as if it would somehow shield me from that which is not simply right before my face but is my face and all else that i am.

i read your words and find myself adrift.

reconsidering.

rebuilding.

so it was when i read these words.

i have held for the longest time the idea that the flaw in my presence is my very human nature.

my being human.

that the true value of my presence here is everything else beyond that state.

so, i was so excited when i read these words because suddenly the face of my presence and its necessity became crystal clear to me and not something to be ashamed of.

. . .

inside the huge romanesque church the tourists jostled in the half darkness.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

for as long as i have known my self i have hovered on the fringe of whatever i am doing.

wherever i am.

i like the distance!

but it's lonely at times.

so i'm grateful for the gentle and good centre of my living as i have come to know it as a pre-mature man.

in fact i am very very grateful.

the golden fish tells something of my relationship with that special place.

i'm grateful to have the opportunity to not only have a means by which to share this relationship, but to have incredible, smart, creative, lovely, loving, clever, insightful, talented, motivating, supportive people

along for the journey.

please

look in the mirror of your knowing of yourself - you are a blessing!

as i fly across the face of this digitized experiencing of

people who are riding the same sort of train while travelling in a kazillion different directions and exchanging riffs and glyphs and signs and signifiers

i realize - well i've known from the start - that i couldn't have anticipated or even dreamed this up.

i really couldn't - and i'm an imaginative person.

so thankyou.

each and every one of you.

i would wish to tell each of you how you are in my life and how that presence is so unlikely and extraordinary and especially how it has given me the courage to express more of myself - again as never before -

but i'll let my work here and the work you don't see - yet - speak for that special relationship.

~

i really admire laura veirs for her ability to create intimate small spaces with enough edginess

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Saturday, July 9, 2011

you could call it serendipitous or you could be truthful and call it divine intervention, so go there for a moment. consider the possibility that in the wholeness of your day there's a sort of opening that arrives and either you're available to it - or you're not.

if you are available to it, then an otherworldly quality overtakes your day and you come face-to-face with something that very clearly has depths to it that step outside the norm.

a moment that expands in the manner that only an unexpected insight can take, draws you away from this place in almost every way.

and that moment appears to have no parameters that you could draw lines of time or space on or inside and so you go with it even though the moment has long since passed, by the terms of this world.

and this fully expanding moment travels alongside your unfolding day - not by the terms of its own reality - but simply by virtue of the fact that you are able to look outward or inward or otherward every so often

and there it is.

there it is - whole and unsullied - one little ever-expanding moment that is there solely to share with you the possibility that there is just that - a possibility of something much more detailed, much more refined, something much more - that there is, much more to each and every detail of this world - something that opens so like a narrow path through dark trees into an opening ... a pool .... silvered and cool ... a place of feather petalled rustlings ... the soft sighs of purposeful passings ... the quick and knowing eyes that blink and close in understanding.

and you know that while you are not alone, you are very much on your own with the entirety of everything outside and entirely inside that moment.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

i am a loving person, bound by conditions that flare like late night fireworks off the surface of this world, and yet i have learned to accept love without condition ... in part ... not quite in whole ...

the subtleties of distractions and expectations are like so many flowers in a garden, like so many swans in a river ... beautiful distractions ...

in this iteration of my presence, i live in a man's body

i live on many levels in layers that unfold and come with entirely distinct mappings and soundings of the whole of my physical existence ....

the details, the practicalities and deliquescent realities and then ...

and then i am also sensitive to the whole of my non-material existence ...

which calls for work in order to be welcomed and to move in its own rendering ...

Monday, July 4, 2011

i know how i set the process in motion and i know that when i write, it’s a very happy place for me.

i also know that there’s much i don’t write about.

that’s a choice i make for now.

i don't know how to put much into words.

those words will arrive at the right time.

for now, i try and resolve or throw things out into the world to see what i see. to know what i know.

so how do i set the process in motion?

well, i have several pathways into that world of worlds.

1) i free-associate, writing whatever comes into my mind and then organize it later. and again. and again. until it feels as close to “right” as “right” feels at the time i push the publish button. then when the piece is live, i edit it some more because i have a better feeling then for how you might read it, and sometimes even how it might make you feel or think.

2) i hear a phrase in my head. it either pushes me to search out a painting or a photograph that can not only stand on its own, but can dance with the words. i have lots of phrases banked, waiting for the right accompaniment, the right partner. the painting or photograph usually tells a story and it’s part of my work to hear it. i find that part easy, but the retelling is very difficult for me. i miss details, i cut out parts of the story. then the piece needs to be a certain length because i know that longer pieces of writing intrude on the reader’s inclination to stick around.

3) the whole piece appears in my head while i’m walking or biking. the trick is to remember it all. same thing for waking in the middle of the night. i am usually awake enough to hear all the words but not so awake as to get up, turn a light on, and write it all down.

4) i read poetry written by ancient japanese, chinese, persian, and modern scandinavian authors. sometimes a phrase or a thought or even something associated with their words will enter the moment and if i lay it down on one of the pathways i’ve already mentioned, it opens up the vista that was previously undefined and misted over. .

5) for a little while i used a tool called n+7 which helped me reorganize my phrases more-or-less randomly. very occasionally something would come up that came close to what i was looking for. more often i focussed on associating outwards from the random phrases generated.

the writing seems to pass through phases. i’m trying to figure out how things might work. little things and big things. because really, they’re telling stories about each other aren’t they! i also like to write about beauty and love from the skin-deep to those features of the entirety of everything that i can conceive of

and place into words.

i’m so deeply grateful to all the people who come here because they often leave comments that bring me to think about my thinking.

in one model, that moves me along the helix.

in another model, it pushes me deeper into myself and so, further away.

in another it connects us in a special way as we share a moment that arrived from the creative energy that emerges from the love that connects everything.